Four places, three countries, 48 hours

We are travelling from Vienna to Munich on Dec's birthday. Hoorah! The Journey is fast and smooth. No sign of any border crossing guards and the hour or so delay we have experienced elsewhere. Munich station is buzzing with travellers, shops and cafes. We quickly check in to our hotel which is five minutes from the station but on a quiet street.

Time to head for the old centre of town. We take our, by now, customary wrong turn and end up backtracking on ourselves but we are soon in the pedestrianised centre and on the look out for one of the city's famous beer kellers. We find ourselves sitting on a wooden bench examining a menu in German with the aid of a dictionary. It becomes clear after a few minutes that we really do need to see an English menu. Some of the dishes on offer appear to contain parts of animals such as lungs, not our cup of tea. The English version of the menu is much shorter with some of the more doubtful dishes being notable by their absence. So we choose sausage and mash with sauerkraut which Philippa decides is much nicer than she remembered, and currywurst with chips. Lovely!

Several of these is PLENTY.

As Dec is now an old man, after a few celebratory drinks, it's another early night.

Our aim on Wednesday was to get some fresh air and avoid the scrum of the shopping district. We headed for the Englischer Garden which is close to the city centre but covers an area larger than New York's Central Park. The weather improved as we walked around and the autumn colours were delightful in the weak sunshine. According to Wikipedia, there is a nudist area in the park but we didn't see it. What did come as a surprise though was the surfing, something not mentioned in Wikipedia.

Surfing in Munich?? Yes indeed. The Gardens contain a fast flowing, man made river called the Eisbach. Just below one of the bridges, the river has been formed into a wave which is now officially recognised as a surfing area for experienced surfers only. They queue up at the side of the river then take it in turns to jump in. Quite a surreal experience but very photogenic.

Sadly we were too early.

The Gardens, which were designed by an American born physicist, Sir Benjamin Thompson, also contain a Japanese tea house and a Chinese pagoda surrounded by a beer garden which can accommodate 7000 people.

We got to the halfway point where the Gardens are currently split by a busy ring road and decided that the northern half would have to wait for another day. It was time for some culture.

Close to the Garden is a group of museums known as the Pinakothek - in essence, one huge museum/gallery split over four buildings. We were heading for these when we spied another gallery in the same area, the Brandhorst. They were advertising a major Andy Warhol exhibition so we changed course to take it in.

The Brandhorst is home to a massive private collection of mostly 20th century American painters. One room contains an impressive sequence of paintings by Cy Twombly, depicting (in a very abstract way) the battle of Lepanto. They have a lot of Twombly's work; the rest of his stuff is less thrilling. Most pictures are "Untitled" and are of a style which gave rise to the phrase "my 4-year-old daughter could do that".

The Warhol stuff was interesting, though. Before his rise to fame as, well, a famous person, he designed and illustrated books, some of his own and some for other authors. To be honest they are not brilliant, though they are typical of their time. The exhibition also included a video comprising about forty 3-minute screen tests, silent black-and-white movies of the various habitues of Warhol's Factory, including Lou Reed and Dennis Hopper, both recently deceased. Three minutes is a long time to be staring at the camera, I'm sure it tells you something about the people in question. But what? As with most video installations, we gave it about five minutes and moved on.

To round off the day, we found another traditional Bavarian/Turkish restaurant for dinner and beers. After our grand tour of the Englischer Garten we were in no shape to stay out late!

 Our last morning in Munich was spent idly, with a big breakfast followed by a wander through the main shopping centre. This leads to Marienplatz where the church has a famous glockenspiel which chimes on the hour while some automatons enact a historic scene. We arrived just before noon and waited for the big moment, which took place about five minutes after every other clock in town had finished chiming. To our unsophisticated ears, the glockenspiel was either out of time or out of tune, or both. The animation was less impressive than we had been led to expect, so overall it was not quite the highlight of our visit.

We headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags then on to the station to catch the train to Paris via Mannheim.

Munich to Mannheim was uneventful; a comfortable trip, if a little crowded - 1st November is a holiday in religious parts of Europe including South Germany and France, so there were a lot of travellers.

Changing at Mannheim was interesting. The station was very busy, signs were inconspicuous and when we found the right platform, there was something of a scrum to board the Paris train. Thankfully we had reservations!

We arrive in Paris about 9pm, and we have a reservation for dinner at 10 with our good friend Frances who has an apartment in the 11th Arrondissement. It's a Kurdish restaurant and the food is not bad. Nor is the wine! It must be said we have become used to lower prices - Paris is way more expensive than, say, Bucharest.

After a restful night we packed our bags for the final time and headed for Gare du Nord and London. This is part of the journey we have done many times and we use the time to read and rest.

Arriving at St Pancras on a Friday evening, and crossing town to Victoria Coach station, serves to remind us how wise we were to move out of town and settle in Devizes! How we ever managed to live - and enjoy living - in such an absurdly busy and crowded environment is a mystery.

The coach to Devizes is also an old favourite. And the best part is arriving in New Park Street! It's 9pm, and with no food in the house we decide to round off our holiday with a traditional British dish from our favourite takeaway - Sweet and Sour Chicken with Egg Fried Rice. 

It's good to be back!